‘I said just now that Major Gentian is vastly proud of his insignia, and I will do him the justice of admitting that this is not altogether because it is an aristocratic one, but in part because of its historic significance. But ours is a practical age. Not altogether sentimentally do we determine the relative greatness of events present and past. Into such determinations, the elements of number, man, yea, and the no less weighty element of cost, enter in. Well, then, there is Bunker Hill. A famous good fight. Yes, indeed. But how much of a muster-roll? How much of a pay-roll? Why, in Virginia we fought battles where a hundred thousand and more would be engaged. While east, west, and south, our files under arms fell not short of a million. And our war-debt, arising in no small part from generous bounties and the regular army pay-roll, soared aloft into two or three thousand millions. Then there is the pension-roll. That, too, is on a scale commensurate with the colossal magnitude of the Great Republic. Why is the blue ribbon of Major Gentian’s badge bordered with white? Major Gentian will reply, very likely, “That is in compliment to our revolutionary ally.” Indeed? But is not white the heraldic colour of the Bourbons, one of whom still preposterously advances his claim to the throne of liberated France? What a fling, then, is this white border at the tricolour of our sister the French Republic! Yes, and what a left-handed slur coming home to ourselves. Men and brethren, for aught I know, an enlightened young Englishman in superannuated old England may be at liberty to speak up for democracy; but in energetic young America, much as we respect old age, shall a hoary-headed old American be tolerated as an advocate of monarchy, or, what is equivalent to that, parading under the Stars and Stripes the craven _white_ of the monarchical Bourbons, the beggars? And is such a man--I put it to your conscience--the sort of man to take place with the law-makers of a people, the chosen people, the advance-guard of progress, a friendly people, the Levite of the nations, to whose custody Jehovah has entrusted the sacred ark of human freedom? (Cries of “No, No,” and riotous applause.)